


Promise Me

by MavisPhire



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Crossdressing, Death, Eventual Romance, F/M, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:08:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28761555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MavisPhire/pseuds/MavisPhire
Summary: During the attack on Trost, Anli sees something she shouldn't have. She just wanted to forget her past. That's why she masqueraded as a boy for three years. But now, that may be impossible. OC. Romance.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Promise Me

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning: mentions of past sexual abuse, death.
> 
> I’ll get right to it.

“Has his fever broken yet?”

I leaned over Misha’s shuddering form, cocooned in his ratty sheets like a moth. His normally tawny complexion was overcome by an ashen undertone, sheened with sweat. Though asleep, his brows were furrowed harshly. I brushed his dark curls back with my fingertips. As bad as he looked, my brother seemed to have improved in the last few hours. My chest was tight with a sickly sweet sense of hope. I’ve felt such a fragile thing so many times that by now I could barely stand it.

At his bedside, Camille pressed two fingers into the sinew of Misha’s neck and counted. “If it hasn’t already, it will soon. His heartbeat is back to normal.” Her eyes slid over the bed to me. “He’s going to be fine. You know how he is. He likes to scare us, but he’s a fighter.”

With a sigh, I leaned back in my chair and let my head drop. This song and dance was an old one, but so long as my brother had a susceptibility for illness, I didn’t think I would be retiring it anytime soon. The relief was miniscule, drowned out by an overwhelming exhaustion that always licked at my bones, but I held onto it like a life raft. 

Misha would pull through, like he always did. It was just another day. The worst day of my life wasn’t here, yet.

I watched his chest rise and drop. “Nothing’s taken him down so far.”

Camille hmphed. “I think this fool has managed to catch every illness known to man.”

I cracked a smile at her, but draped a heavy arm over my face to block out the morning rays of sun. It was proof that I’d spent another sleepless night sitting at this bed. It wasn’t that he asked me to stay awake for him, or that he even needed me to. It was just that my body refused to relax when I knew he was in another battle. It was either that or lay on my dingy mattress in the other room, every sleepless second passing a reminder that I couldn’t hear his breathing.

Once, his fever had broken and he’d caught me listening to him in the night. “That’s kind of creepy, you know,” he teased in the darkness. The chuckle was a relief, an indication that he felt well enough to quip with me. “Aren’t you tired of watching me be lazy in the day?”

“I’m used to being up all night, remember?” I said, then wished I hadn’t when his eyes glazed with pain at the implication. 

“Never again,” he promised. “That’s behind you.”

Camille struck me out of my reverie with a heavy sigh. “I just know he got this from the rain the other day. I told him not to get his feet wet. He only listens to you.”

I hummed, not sure if I agreed with either comment. The problem wasn’t really Misha. Well, he certainly had a poor immune system, but really, he wouldn’t get sick nearly as often if we got him out of this filthy place. Or if we could afford better medicine. But we weren’t there yet. Our savings was growing, that was for sure, but making it out of the slums of Trost felt a lifetime away. 

Moaning, our brother rolled away from the window and pulled the sheet over his head. “...Shut up?” he muttered, so sluggishly that I wasn’t convinced he was conscious.

Camille scowled, but lowered her voice. “I know I’m no doctor, but I’m doing my best here.”

“He doesn’t like doctors, either,” I muttered. 

“That’s not true.” She took the opportunity to steal our only pillow out from under Misha’s curled neck, ruffing it up and flipping it to a new side. “He liked Dr. Jaeger.”

From what I heard, the man had been a god-send, though I never got to meet him. He’d seen Misha whenever he traveled from Wall Maria to the inner walls for other business. Not a single visitation fee. He wouldn’t even accept payment for the medicine he provided. If it hadn’t been for him, Misha would have been six dead years ago. Even the thought of how close he’d been sent ice to my veins, rousing me a bit. Had that happened, we would have never been reunited three years ago.

Camille bit her lip, expressive green eyes dropping to the floor. “I wonder if he’s alright.”

“He’s probably dead,” I said curtly. “You said he was from Shiganshina.” 

Not a soul within the walls hadn’t heard the stories from five years ago. When Wall Maria had been breached, it had been in Shiganshina district. There weren’t many survivors left from the outermost wall at all, but from the southernmost point? It would take a lot of luck to survive all that. His only hope would have been if he’d been away from home at the time of the attack, safe in the inner walls. As a doctor, he probably wouldn’t have been sent out to fight for the land back in the following excursions, so there was that in his favor. But then, that didn’t explain why he hadn’t come to see Misha for five years when he’d been so dedicated before. When Misha had asked around, no one in Trost had seen him since. It wasn’t a good sign.

Since then, it had been a constant struggle whenever Misha would get to the point of collapse to find the right doctor to bribe. We only had so much to offer, and since the fall of Wall Maria, people only had so much kindness in their hearts to give.

“You're probably right.” Camille didn’t need me to baby her. She knew death better than anyone. Probably even better than I did. From outside our little house, we heard the commotion of our neighbors waking. The day was starting, with or without us. 

“You should go, Anli.” Camille nodded toward Misha. “I’ll stay with him.” 

I schooled my expression, knowing a frown would give away that I wanted to stay, how much I wanted to switch places. But if I could just do that, I would have already traded with Misha. Then I remembered that I had a shift at the docks, and I wouldn’t wish such a thing on my worst enemy. 

Well. That was a little dramatic. And untrue. I wished a lot of horrible things on my enemies. A decent paying job, even if it was hard labor, wasn’t one of them. Before it got too late, I left the side of the bed to perform my second old song and dance; transforming Anli into Li.

The first step was undressing and binding my chest—not that there was a lot to bind. Camille and I were the same in that department. Spending our developing years in an orphanage tended to leave one with a specific body type. Slanted angles, gaunt limbs, curveless. Luckily for me, I was taller and sturdier than her, packed with muscles from my past. It made my persona at least somewhat convincing. 

Only Camille and Misha knew Anli, the insolent, miscreant woman who could drink anyone under the table. The rest of Trost knew Li, a boy who kept to himself and hid under a dusty newsboy cap.

Camille watched me stuff the hat over my scraggly black hair and return to Misha’s side. “He’s still asleep. Don’t wake him up.”

“I just want to say goodbye.” He’d since changed positions again, his head thrown back and his feet entangling the thin sheet. Carefully, I pulled it free and tucked it up to his narrow chest. Then I enclosed his hand with my own. 

He wasn’t my biological brother. We looked nothing alike, save the general darkness of our features. But he was the only family I’d ever had. Camille, too, though I didn’t often refer to her as my sister in the way I called Misha my brother. I supposed, functionally, that was how I saw her. But I’d only known her for three years, when I’d returned to Trost. In my absence, she had looked out for our brother at the orphanage. I owed her for that, though she hadn’t done it for me.

We hadn’t gotten along at all at first, always clashing, always putting Misha in the middle of us. She’d tried to push me out, and it was difficult to argue she didn’t have a right to. I’d been gone for years, and I wasn’t safe. But things were different now. Things were good.

“I’ll keep trying to find a doctor,” Camille said. My grip on Misha’s hand tightened, and I peered into her face. Downcast. From that, I knew what she meant.

If you squinted and imagined a few extra pounds and places to grab on her frame, Camille was pretty. A lot of men thought so, too, even the ones in slightly higher places. She was a trim girl with a heart-shaped face. Lovely, with a pointed nose but lack-luster blonde hair cranked back in a tight bun. She’d found that, alongside her job as a servant in the Reeves manor, she could use this to get things we could never afford. More than just some extra bread. 

Camille had discovered the reliable Dr. Jaeger this way, through Mr. Reeves, her employer. 

Stuff like that was why we’d stopped fighting—we both understood the lengths we were willing to go for Misha. That curly haired rascal was our sun and moon.

“Don’t push yourself too hard,” I murmured. Then I stood. “I’ll be back tonight.”

. . . 

“What’s with all the soldiers?”

Four of us rested on crates still stacked on the ship, leaning into the spray from the river that kicked up from five meters below. Being next to the water, in my opinion, was the hardest part of working at the docks. It looked so clear and crisp, and we spent most of the day struggling under heavy weights in the sun. Because we worked with supply ships that took the river all the way from the capital, unstocking and restocking them was time-sensitive. Our breaks were short.

Sweat stung at my eyes as I stole a swig of water from Leif’s pouch. We’d just finished a harrowing stretch of unloading and were trying to restore our constitutions for the next batch.

Edward, the red-head, was the one who asked, gazing above our heads to the wall in the distance.

Mikel spit a loogie over the side and I prayed the wetness I felt on my cheeks was from the river. “They’re like tax-eating cockroaches. They’re everywhere.” 

From our poor vantage point, the soldiers scaling Wall Rose looked like ants, but it was clear there were more than usual. Trost was one of the outer districts, which pretty much made it a military base that recruited civilians to live in it. It was no stranger to an influx of garrison and survey corps cadets. Since Wall Maria had fallen, it was the gate the scouts departed from. Camille and I had missed their sendoff that morning, taking care of Misha. Not that I ever attended. I had no penchant for watching people ride off to their deaths.

“There a noble having a ball or some shit?”

I kept my head down and picked at a hangnail.

Edward scowled, wiping a line of sweat from his brow. “How would I know if there was? Does it look like nobles invite me to their mansions?” 

Mikel eyed him up and down with a humorous face. “True. Hey, Li, does that sister of yours know about any parties?” The way he grinned at the mention of Camille made my blood boil. If he hadn’t leaned back by the time he did, I might have actually sunk my fist into his stupid, square face. “Maybe she can sneak us in? I could go for some fancy wine.”

I glared in silence until he got the message and tsked. 

“Party pooper,” he muttered.

“There’s no party,” Leif said. “It’s that time of year again.”

“Already?” Mikel touched his chin in thought. “I suppose you’re right. Guess the new cadet class graduated, then.”

“Your mind must be going, old man,” Edward chuckled. It was a razz; he was the same age, somewhere in his mid-forties. Leif was the closest to my age, being a young man of twenty-four. 

Li was eighteen to accommodate for my size. For a boy, I might have been considered short, though I was pretty normal for a woman. Eighteen was just a convenient age to be. I was still an adult and could still order alcohol, but young enough that my appearance matched. Sometimes I was accused of being younger, ironically. I didn’t actually know when I was born, but it was probably safe to say I was older than eighteen.

“Ready to finish up here, geezers?” Leif cracked his neck and gestured at the crates we still had to unload. Together, we stood and stretched, then started taking boxes off the top. There was a system of stacking and staying out of each other’s way that we’d mastered after years on the job. 

Someone shouted. “Li.”

I paused in my crouch, abandoning my plan to slip my fingers under a particularly heavy crate. Beneath my feet, the boat swayed as my coworkers stepped back onto the dock with their own load. I peered over my shoulder to see who had called my name. 

Beside me, Leif grinned. “Looks like someone’s in trouble.”

I spared him a glance before swinging my leg over the railing and touching back to the docks, bypassing the line of men at the plank. Couldn’t disrupt the system.

My employer, his sleeves rolled over his thick arms, waved me over. I wiped my hands onto my shirtfront, weary that Leif was right. Basil didn’t exactly need a reason to ream one of us out in front of the whole docks. The man had lungs and a hair-trigger temper. My first week, I accidentally dropped a box of rations, unaccustomed to the weight of the lifting we were expected to do without assistance from the rigs. He had gotten in my face and chewed me out like a drill sergeant. The next day, he was shocked to see me back again like nothing had happened.

Basil didn’t scare me. But when I noticed a man with a merlot jacket and a wide-brimmed hat beside him, I approached with apprehension. “Yeah?” 

My boss turned to the man. “This is the kid. Definitely on the small side, but he gets the job done and doesn’t complain.”

He was too distracted to notice my sharp glare. Every man in the company knew I hated speaking to anyone, especially strangers. I’d specifically told Basil that I didn’t want to talk to anyone asking for me unless it was Camille or Misha when I started working under him. I thought it was an easy arrangement and one he would appreciate. Leif had women stop by all the time, to the point where it almost got in the way of his work.

The man brought a gloved hand to his goateed chin and stroked. “Fascinating.” The underside of his coat was an obnoxious plum. Immediately, I was on edge. But there was no escape, unless I wanted Li to come across as memorable for being rude. Damn social conventions. 

“Thanks for respecting my privacy,” I hissed, intending for only Basil to hear, though I’m not sure it worked out that way. “Did he ask for me?”

Basil finally looked at me and shrugged. “Nah, this is a merchant from the capital. Owns that ship you’re unloading at the moment. He was just curious about how we do things around here.”

The man’s eyes gleamed and he stepped closer as if to rescue Basil from my scrutiny. “Forgive me, son. I’ve never seen an Asian person before and requested a closer look.” He removed his hat in a polite bow, revealing intentionally curled hair and a balding spot. For the life of me, I would never understand the fashion of the wealthy. “I apologize for such a strange circumstance. My curiosity got the better of me, I’m afraid.”

His words sent ants crawling down my spine. “Well, now you’ve seen one.” I turned to Basil. “Can I get back to work?”

As he was about to nod, the merchant again stepped closer. Nearly in between me and Basil, he offered his hand to me. “Actually, If you wouldn’t mind, I’ve some questions.” His grin was innocent enough. “I’d like to know more about your heritage.”

I stared at his outstretched hand, hard, then frowned at Basil for him to explain. 

“He don’t touch people,” Basil huffed, crossing his arms. “Not unless it’s to throw a punch.” Leif had learned that the hard way. People touching me made my skin crawl. Even Misha didn’t have that privilege. 

The man let out an understanding ‘ah’. “No worries, son. I was too forward. But if you’re willing, I’d still love to have a chat.”

He turned a snakish smile to Basil, and then we were both looking at my boss expectantly. I had zero intentions of continuing this any further. I should've turned around the second I saw the stranger. All of my alarm bells were blaring, red flags raised. I wanted to leave. I wanted to stomp on Basil’s foot.

Basil rubbed his neck. “He should get back to work. I’m not paying him to stand around and chat.”

The merchant’s face fell. “I see. Well, what if I compensate you both for the time I eat up? You see, I fear I won’t get a chance like this again. He’s of a dying breed, you see.”

Ice ran through my veins at his word choice. 

“I can’t help you.” I didn’t want to, and I likely wasn’t able to. I was an orphan with no memories of my life before I wound up at the orphanage. I didn’t have any heritage to share. Unless he wanted to know what color my ear wax was, there wasn’t much I could do for him.

I didn’t wait for him to offer again. I spun on my heel and marched back to the boat, climbing aboard. Immediately, I found a task to busy myself, securing ropes around one of the unwieldy crates so we could rig it when the other crates were off.

I refused to look behind me until a shadow obscured my light. Leif grinned down at me, resting his chin on his hand and his elbow on the ship’s railing. He was a green-eyed, strawberry blond imp.

“So, what was that about? I didn’t hear any screaming. Basil go easy on you?”

I didn’t answer, yanking a knot tight like a tourniquet. 

He sighed. “Ah, come on. I’m just curious. I like the drama.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I muttered, moving on to another knot. It had taken me nearly a year to master them, but it paid off. “There was just some merchant with questions.”

Leif frowned. “For you? Did you know him?”

I shot him a glance. ‘What do you think?’

He looked perturbed, probably putting two and two together.

It was impossible to hide my ethnicity. I’d tried, to no avail. My bone structure and coloring were too foreign to conceal without a mask. Men took second looks, and girls ogled me. It wasn’t ideal for someone who was trying to keep a low profile. 

Leif craned his neck to look at the dock. “Him? I can’t believe Basil let that weirdo talk to you. He looks like he licks boots and has someone shove them up his chute.”

“I’m not happy at the moment.” I scowled. “Basil will do anything a customer asks. He has no backbone.”

“Woah.” Leif laughed. “Better hope I don’t tell him you said that.”

I glared, then sighed. He wouldn’t, and we both knew it. He’d said much worse to me in confidence. When you were as quiet as Li was, people liked to assume you were a good listener. He was at least right that I wouldn’t spill his gossip to others, so I was safe to vent to in that department.

I sighed. I couldn’t put too much blame on Basil. He didn’t understand why it mattered so much that no one outside of Trost knew about a young Asian boy.

Li had been born for several reasons. The least important of which was that Basil would probably not hire a woman for dock work, and I relied on this job for keeping me and my family afloat. If the three of us had to survive on two servant salaries, we wouldn’t make it past the winter with Misha’s condition.

More importantly, though, was that I had some enemies in high places. The kind that were powerful enough that they had the luxury of holding a grudge for a long, long time, and the resources to pursue me for as long as they pleased.

There wasn’t much I could do about my appearance. But if my enemies were looking for an Asian woman, maybe they would overlook an Asian boy. 

Or maybe I was paranoid and no one was looking for me at all. But considering what I had done, I doubted it.

Keeping the brim of my hat low in case the merchant was still watching, I stood.

It was like the sky cracked with lightning. Leif and I swayed on the ship, which was sent rocking, but from the men falling to their knees, it looked like the reverberation was worse on the ground. 

“What the hell?” Leif gasped, clinging to the rail.

We looked up. There was smoke billowing in the above us, streaking across the skyline to the top of Wall Rose.

There, peeking over the structure that separated humanity from our predators, we saw the skinless head of the colossal titan.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not a manga reader, so no spoilers please :)  
> Anli’s age is ambiguous, so I was hoping to get some input on who you might like to see her with. I would love to read your thoughts so far.
> 
> Thanks!


End file.
